James Henrikson did what most people only threaten in anger and never carry out: he hired hit men when his business relationships went bad. Now, a Ninth Circuit panel has vacated some of his solicitation convictions. Not because the court doubted the brutality of his conduct, but because of how Congress drafted the federal murder‑for‑hire statute and how courts decide what counts as a “crime of violence.”
A Bloody Business Model
Henrikson ran trucking and oil‑drilling operations in North Dakota between 2011 and 2013, and he did not take kindly to competition. When employee Kristopher Clarke started lining up a job with a rival company, Henrikson paid hit man Timothy Suckow $20,000 to make sure Clarke never made the move. Clarke was called to Henrikson’s truck shop, where Suckow lay in wait; Henrikson kept Clarke occupied until Suckow struck him with a tire jack, killing him.
Roughly a year later, Henrikson turned to Suckow again, this time offering another $20,000 to kill his co‑investor, Douglas Carlile. Suckow followed through, shooting Carlile multiple times inside his home. Henrikson also recruited a different would‑be hit man to go after three other associates, but those planned killings never came to pass.
Don’t worry, he didn’t get away with it. In 2016, a jury convicted Henrikson on eleven counts arising out of this scheme. These included substantive murder‑for‑hire and conspiracy to commit murder‑for‑hire using interstate facilities (under a statute we’ll call the “murder‑for‑hire law”), along with four counts of solicitation under a different statute (we’ll call it the “solicitation law”), which treated the murder‑for‑hire law as a predicate “crime of violence.”
The district court imposed a complex sentence that left Henrikson with two consecutive life terms plus twenty years, followed by supervised release. Some of his sentences, including those on the solicitation counts, ran concurrently with at least one of the life sentences. But a few years later, a new precedent changed how the law treated his solicitation convictions.
Linehan Complicates Things
In 2022, the Ninth Circuit decided U.S. v. Linehan, holding that murder‑for‑hire without injury or death is not a “crime of violence” for purposes of the solicitation law. Linehan accepted the government’s concession that the murder‑for‑hire law, when no one is injured or killed, does not require the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force. But the Ninth Circuit in that case held that this “no‑injury, no‑death” version of the offense is not a crime of violence under the solicitation law.
Armed with Linehan, Henrikson sought post‑conviction relief and argued that none of his solicitation counts could stand because the statute he was accused of soliciting under (the murder‑for‑hire law) is not the kind of offense the solicitation law has in mind when it uses “crime of violence.”
The district court agreed in part and vacated two solicitation convictions based on schemes that did not result in death. But it refused to vacate the solicitation counts tied to Clarke’s and Carlile’s deaths. The theory was that murder‑for‑hire “if death results” is different, and that once someone is actually killed, the offense becomes a crime of violence for solicitation purposes.
Henrikson appealed. Linehan had left a big question open: whether murder‑for‑hire resulting in death is a “crime of violence” under the solicitation law.
What the Solicitation Law Actually Says
To answer that question, the Ninth Circuit had to zoom in on how the murder‑for‑hire law meshes with the solicitation law’s definition of a “crime of violence.”
The solicitation law only applies when the solicited offense has, as part of its legal definition, “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force” against a person or property. That language focuses on the statute’s ingredients rather than the particular facts of the case. The court is not asking, “Was Henrikson’s conduct violent?”— that answer is obviously yes. It is asking, “Does this statute always require violence as one of its legally defined components?” If there is any way to violate the law without violent physical force used against someone with a sufficiently culpable mental state, then the offense is not a “crime of violence” for purposes of the solicitation law.
The murder‑for‑hire law has three main ingredients:
- The defendant must use or cause travel in interstate or foreign commerce, or use an interstate facility
- He must do so with the intent that a murder be committed; and
- He must intend that the murder be committed in exchange for money or something of value.
It also has a tiered punishment scheme: a lower range when no one is injured or killed, and higher ranges “if personal injury results” and “if death results.” Linehan had already accepted that the base version (without injury or death) does not itself require any actual use or threat of force and can be violated by a murder‑for‑hire plan that never goes forward.
Death Doesn’t Make It a ‘Crime of Violence’
In Henrikson’s case, the court asked whether adding “if death results” changes the analysis. It reasoned that the injury and death clauses are part of the statute’s legal definition and must be proved to the jury, but noted that they are written in bare, passive language. The death clause simply says “if death results” and does not require that the killing itself be intentional or reckless. The earlier parts of the statute do require intent to have a murder committed for pay, but the death clause just describes an outcome, not a state of mind about the use of force.
Because the law treats “if death results” as an outcome rather than a separate requirement that the defendant intend or consciously risk killing someone, you can violate the murder‑for‑hire law in its death‑resulting form without deliberately or knowingly using force against a person. The court’s example is straightforward: someone uses interstate facilities with the intent that a murder be committed for money, lures the intended victim into his car as part of that plot, and then accidentally causes a crash that kills the victim. He has violated the murder‑for‑hire law in its death‑resulting form — he set up a murder‑for‑hire scheme and death did, in fact, result — but the killing itself was accidental. There was no intentional, knowing, or extremely reckless use of force against the victim.
Because the murder‑for‑hire law covers that kind of accidental death, the minimum conduct that counts as “murder‑for‑hire resulting in death” does not always involve violent force used with a sufficiently blameworthy mental state. That means the statute does not fit the solicitation law’s definition of a “crime of violence,” which insists on both violent force and a particular kind of intent or recklessness about that force. On that reasoning, the Ninth Circuit held that murder‑for‑hire resulting in death is not a crime of violence for purposes of the solicitation law, and therefore cannot be used as a predicate for federal solicitation charges.
What It All Means
For Henrikson, the result is that all four of his solicitation convictions (two based on schemes that did not result in death and two based on schemes that did) must be vacated. But don’t forget: his life sentences for substantive murder‑for‑hire and conspiracy remain intact; he is not walking out of prison.
Nonetheless, the opinion is meaningful in that it draws a sharp line around how far the federal government can stretch “crime of violence” language in the solicitation context. And it underscores a counterintuitive reality: in federal criminal law, whether an offense counts as “violent” sometimes depends less on what actually happened and more on how Congress chose to write the statute. In practical terms, the Ninth Circuit has now made clear that the federal murder‑for‑hire law (at least in its base and death‑resulting forms) cannot serve as a predicate “crime of violence” under the solicitation law.
